


bury my love (in the moondust)

by starseungs



Category: Stray Kids (Band)
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Childhood Friends, Gen, Growing Up, Kind of Happy ending?, M/M, Mutual Pining, Non-Linear Narrative, changbin is a sap, hyunjin just wants his best friend almost boyfriend back, implied mutual pining, rated T just in case, seungmin and jeongin are mentioned in passing, this is just angst, trains and stars bc analogies are sexy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-19
Updated: 2020-07-19
Packaged: 2021-03-04 19:48:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,138
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25371922
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starseungs/pseuds/starseungs
Summary: then, there were two boys, a sky full of stars, and the resounding promise of forever.now, there are the same two boys, a sky devoid of stars, and the echo of the train station.or; hyunjin and changbin's "forever".
Relationships: Hwang Hyunjin & Seo Changbin, Hwang Hyunjin/Seo Changbin
Comments: 4
Kudos: 42





	bury my love (in the moondust)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hhwang](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hhwang/gifts).



> happy birthday kenzie!

_ I’m living far away on the face of the moon, _

_ I've buried my love to give the world to you _

Hyunjin swings half heartedly on one of the seats attached to the swing set. He's at the park he always frequents near his house, waiting for his best friend to show up. Changbin is only ten minutes late, but to seven year old Hyunjin, it feels like forever. The seconds drag on and Hyunjin thinks maybe Changbin won't come. No sooner does he think this, he sees the latter running up to the park, clearly in a hurry since he looks to be out of breath.

Once he approaches him, Hyunjin pouts. “You're late.”

“Sorry,” Changbin responds genuinely. “I was reading and lost track of time.”

Hyunjin hums, accepting his apology, and Changbin takes a seat on the empty swing next to him. They stay like that, for a while, just swaying while Changbin catches his breath. Then, Hyunjin asks, “What were you reading about?”

Changbin turns slightly red at this, but responds honestly. “It was a book my grandma gave me, it's about these two girls that promise to love each other forever.”

“Oh,” Hyunjin says after a moment. “Then we should do that too!”

The older almost chokes on his spit. “What?”

“We already love each other, let's just promise we'll do it forever!” 

“Hyunjin, it's not like–” 

“Come on, hyung.” Hyunjin gets up from his seat and pulls Changbin up with him. “Let's promise to be friends and love each other forever.” And then, as if added as an afterthought. “Please?”

It only takes one look into his eyes for Changbin to crack. “Okay, okay. We'll promise.”

“Forever?” the young boy asks, his eyes sparkling with the naïveté of youth and smile unparalleled in its brightness. 

He holds out his pinky for the other to take. The older hesitates for only a second before sealing the promise, their pinkies interlocked as tightly as possible. “Forever.”

“Now you have to eat all the eggplants mom gives me for lunch, all the time.” Hyunjin says solemnly.

“Wh– I'm not doing that!” Changbin retorts. “Maybe I’ll eat you instead.”

It doesn't take long for Hyunjin to shriek and start running. Their laughter mixes into the crisp autumn air, lost in the falling leaves, as they fall back into their normal routine. He doesn’t realize, then, the weight of the promise. He doesn’t realize how important it will become to him in the coming years. For now, Hyunjin runs around their neighborhood, hand in hand with his best friend, laughing about everything and nothing. When he goes home that day, he tells his mom about forever with a lightness in his chest and a sparkle in his eyes. His mom smiles at him gently and tells him that forever isn’t an excuse to not eat his eggplants. It’s a simple day, but as Hyunjin goes to bed that night, he dreams of forever throughout lifetimes, alongside his best friend.

  
  


**18:00**

Hyunjin steps out into the busy streets of Seoul, it’s a Tuesday afternoon and he’s been having a strange, solemn feeling all day. The screen of his phone lights up with a notification, a text from Seungmin asking if he’s alright, but Hyunjin’s eyes pass over it in favour of looking at the date for the nth time today.  _ Tuesday, April 14th _ , it reads. Then, as if Seungmin knows what he’s thinking, he receives another text from the younger.

**from: minnie**

_ are you okay? do you need anything? _

_ staring at the date all day won’t make it any better, jinnie _

He stares at the text, eyes reading but not processing, before putting his phone back into his sweater pocket. Hyunjin starts on his path towards the train station, clearing his mind of all thoughts in favour of listening to the sound of the cars passing by and the white noise of countless voices. The sky is still cloudy from the aftermath of rain and he has to consciously avoid stepping in small puddles of water that lie on the pavement. He reaches the station sooner than expected and the noise of the city is replaced with the bustle of the station. There’s a song in the background Hyunjin can vaguely make out, but it is drowned out by the sound of mindless chattering and the trains and buses coming in and out of the station.

He scans his train pass at the entrance and looks at the timings for the next train on the information board near the front. He’s late today, normally taking the 5pm train home, but the rain hadn’t let up until around half an hour after and he hadn’t thought to bring an umbrella. The next train is at 6:15, which means that he’ll probably be home by 7:00, but Hyunjin doesn’t mind. It’s not like he had anything to do for the rest of the day anyway. 

Hyunjin takes a seat at the bench placed near the 57 Southbound. Being seated doesn’t help his nerves, and he starts to pick at his cuticles, a bad habit since he was a kid. He can hear the song playing in the background clearer now, too, but it’s near the end and he can’t quite pick up what it’s called. His phone buzzes in his pocket, and takes it out to see a notification from Jeongin, informing the elder that he’s raiding his house because he’s run out of chips. Hyunjin sends a quick text back, claiming Jeongin only likes him for his snacks, before scrolling through his phone in hopes of finding something to do.

Before he knows it, the train halts into the station and he’s seated inside a cart. Strangers pile into the train for a while before the doors close and the train starts again. It’s relatively quiet, and he sees some people reading while others are typing away at their phones. Hyunjin tucks himself into his own corner and puts on his airpods just to seem busy, too. It works, for most of the train ride, but the sound of the train is enough to bring memories tumbling forward, too many at once that Hyunjin can’t pick them apart. From somewhere close by, a stranger laughs quietly, and the laugh is so familiar that he finds himself going back to when he was seventeen. 

He’s so caught up in his memories, he doesn’t realize that the nothingness that he’s staring into is actually a person. His vision focuses just as the bus calls for the passengers at this stop to get off. His stop isn’t until two stations later, but the blood in his body freezes as he watches people file out of the bus quietly. Amidst them is a face he hasn’t seen in a while, a face he last saw exactly two years ago from today. Hyunjin doesn’t think—he grabs his belongings and runs out of the nearest exit just before the train doors close. He doesn’t know where he’s going, he doesn’t even know  _ why _ , all he knows is that after two years, he’s not making the same mistake again.

  
  


_ You ran away to find something to say, _

_ I went astray to make it okay, _

Hyunjin doesn’t know when him and Changbin became so distant. It started with small excuses, not being able to hang out as often because of university or work. And then, the next thing he knew, the distance between them was so vast and so deep, like two sides of a cavern, that Hyunjin wasn’t even sure what Changbin liked to do anymore in his spare time. Three months of not seeing each other, of brief texts and even shorter calls. Most conversations ending in words they both don’t mean and concerns both of them refuse to listen to. Somewhere, in between everything Hyunjin was working to gain, he lost the one thing he’s had without question for all his life. He knows it's not only his fault, that Changbin has been busy and barely responsive, too. And maybe it wasn’t Hyunjin that started getting too caught up in everything life had to offer first, but Hyunjin is the one that let Changbin drift away without thinking to reach out. For that, he thinks, he’ll never forgive himself.

That’s how Hyunjin finds himself in the library sitting across from Changbin, eyes tired and defeated. He can't find it in himself to cry, he’s done too much of that already. It doesn't change the way his heart twists in his chest, like it's being pricked at with thorns and suffocated all at once. “Hyung,” he says, and he must sound more pathetic than he thinks because Changbin winces. “Hyung…” he repeats, because he knows it’s maybe the last time he'll get to say it. “This– This is it, isn't it?” 

Changbin stays silent, but Hyunjin can tell his own silence is suffocating him. “You know,” Hyunjin continues, trying to lighten the mood. “You shouldn't go around promising forever if you don't believe in it.”

The older still remains silent, not even looking at Hyunjin. “Hyung, please,” he asks, feeling something in him break further. “At least say goodbye.”

He hears Changbin inhale sharply at that, but still only silence responds to his plea. “I know it was different for you than it was for me, hyung. Because you never– You didn’t–” even now, when he has nothing left to lose, Hyunjin chokes on his words. They lodge themselves at his throat like glass, pressing into the sides. His vision begins to blur again and he curses internally. “Hyung,  _ please _ .” he rasps.

“Hyunjin,” Changbin breathes, and Hyunjin almost misses it while trying very adamantly not to cry. “I’ve always–” the rest of his sentence is lost to the emptiness of the room, hanging between them like a pendulum. “Take care of yourself.” Changbin says instead, and then he looks up. He looks up and Hyunjin feels like he's been punched in the gut and all the air has been knocked out of him. Because Changbin is  _ crying _ , tears streaking his face and eyes puffy. His nose is red and his lips are pressed so tightly together it looks like he's holding himself back from breaking in the middle of the library.

In that moment, there is nothing more Hyunjin wants to do than to wrap his arms around the older. To whisper sweet nothings into his ears and  _ hold him _ , even if it's for one last time. Maybe, in another world, if he were brave enough, he would've done just that. He would have figured out where things went wrong from the beginning, instead of finding out when it was too late. Maybe, he would've asked Changbin to stay. Maybe, if he were braver, he would've been able to say those  _ stupid three words _ that always manage to flow so freely with others, but get lost in translation with Changbin. 

But here, in this world,  _ right now,  _ he isn't brave. He doesn't want to face the consequences of those three words, even when he's lost everything with Changbin already. So he lets Changbin get up from his chair and walk away without a word. He doesn’t chase him, doesn’t call for his name again, doesn’t beg him to stay. 

  
  


**18:35**

Hyunjin runs so fast out of the train that he almost trips on his way out. Two years and the ache in his chest whenever he thinks of the older still hasn’t gone away. It’s not as sharp as before, not like a sword pressed through his heart and lungs. It’s a softer ache, like a blanket of heaviness gently coating the space in his chest. Now, Hyunjin feels the same desperation to hold on that he did two years ago. He’s not even thinking about how he’ll find his way home from the forigen station, racing through the crowd and looking around so desperately that people give him odd looks. From the corner of his eye, he sees Changbin across the station walking up the stairs that lead into the streets. He knows if Changbin gets that far, he might lose the older indefinitely. 

He wants to run, but the crowd of people is thick and too many to get there as fast as he’d like.  _ It should not be this crowded at 7pm _ , Hyunjin thinks as he weaves his way in between groups of people. Changbin is gone from his sight and into the stairwell within moments, and he doesn't think before he calls out to him. He doesn't even know if Changbin heard him, all he can see is what's in front of him. The stairwell that he  _ has  _ to get to, and one last chance to make things right again. Hyunjin is twenty two, and he doesn't believe in forever anymore, but he thinks that maybe if he can speak to Changbin one last time, without the oppressive silence of the library and tears that are long overdue, it'll be enough for him. And maybe, if Changbin is braver now, too, then just  _ maybe _ Hyunjin can see forever unfold before him again.

Hyunjin makes it to the stairs later than he would like, and despite being out of breath, he climbs them as fast as his body will let him. When he makes it out of the station, silence greets him. He sees friends and families coming to and from the station, he sees cars stop at the nearby red light, but he doesn't see Changbin.

The sun sets from the horizon, it's yellows and oranges muddled with the dark blues and purples of the night. Above him, the full moon sits in the sky, it's glow is dim and not quite as beautiful as he remembers it to be. There are no stars; there are never stars this close to the city. 

Hyunjin’s breath stutters. He doesn't know what he was expecting. He doesn't know why he ran all the way, especially since he doesn't know how to get home from here. There's a tightness in his chest, where his heartbeat is loud and irregular, but it's not from exertion. Hyunjin bites the inside of his cheek to distract from the way the strings of his heart are stretched so thinly they burn. The universe is crueler than he gave it credit for.

“Hyunjin?” a voice calls from behind him, it's tentative, like the person isn't sure who they're speaking to. Hyunjin whips around so quickly he feels his head spin. 

“Hyung,” Hyunjin breathes out, like speaking too loud will make Changbin disappear from in front of him.

Changbin smiles at him gently, his eyes swim with a thousand emotions Hyunjin can't place, but Hyunjin is sure he doesn't look any better. There are too many things he wants to say, too many thoughts he’s wanted to share since the beginning, but what comes out is, “I missed you.”

Changbin laughs, it's soft and a bit nervous, but Hyunjin thinks that even after two years, it's still as brilliant as the first time he's heard it. “I missed you too.”

Hyunjin doesn't think when he surges forward and wraps his arms around the other. He’s been doing a lot of not thinking recently, but if that means he has Changbin back, even for a moment, he thinks it's worth it. Changbin stiffens for a second before hugging him back. It's not a tight hug, because they're both still unsure where they stand, but it's close enough to remind Hyunjin that this isn't a dream.

There's still a lot they have to talk about, a lot of things they have to catch up on and work through before Hyunjin can even think of believing in forever again. But here, right now, he thinks he can be brave enough to work for it, to bridge the gap between the two of them if Changbin is willing to be brave, too. 

“Do you still like ramen?” Changbin asks, pulling away from the embrace, gently holding Hyunjin’s wrist to remind him he’s there. “Or did you get sick of it after practically breathing it in university?” 

Hyunjin laughs, the tension falling away from his shoulders. “If it has eggplants you're obliged to eat all of them as per our childhood pact.”

“What kind of ramen has eggplants?” Changbin asks, scrunching his nose in distaste. 

“I don't think a conversation over ramen will fix this, hyung.” Hyunjin replies sadly.

“You're right, but a conversation over  _ multiple  _ ramens–” Changbin cuts off when Hyunjin swats his arm playfully. “I'm willing to try if you are.”

“Pinky promise,” Hyunjin says, holding out his pinky.

“We're not eight years old anymore, Hyunjin,” Changbin starts, but stops when he sees Hyunjin making a face at him. “Fine, pinky promise.”

Hyunjin smiles down at their interlocked fingers. The weight in his chest is still there, but it feels lighter than it has in a long time. He still doesn't know how he's going to get home later, but he decides it's a problem for later. For now, he focuses on the weight of Changbin’s hand on his wrist and the easy playfulness of his words.

  
  


_ I’d give anything to hear you say it one more time, _

_ that the universe was made, just to be seen by my eyes _

It's the last day of summer, Changbin’s last year in high school. The stars twinkle in the sky, brilliant and bright, weaving together constellations and leaving behind the trail of the Milky Way. They're lying on the rooftop of Hyunjin’s house, tired eyes and pinkies linked. Hyunjin thinks if this is what “forever” feels like, he never wants to let it go.

“You know,” Changbin starts, in the voice he has whenever he's about to say something absurd. “I think that everything good in this world was made just for you.”

Hyunjin snorts and elbows his side. “Don't be ridiculous.” 

“I'm serious!” the elder replies in offense. “Everything in our universe was made just for you. I can even prove it!”

“Yeah? How are you gonna do that, genius?” Hyunjin asks, eyes twinkling.

“....I didn't think that far ahead yet.” Changbin admits and it only takes one look at each other before they burst out in laughter.

“We’ll stay in touch, right?” Hyunjin asks after a beat. He's still young and naive, still so full of hope and love.

“Of course,” Changbin responds, like it's common sense and Hyunjin is the one missing something. “We said forever, didn't we?”

“Yeah but… How long is forever?”

“Hyunjin, I will always be here, no matter what. Until every last star in the universe dies, and until our galaxy folds in on itself, I'm here. You have me, always.” Changbin whispers. “Forever.”

“Okay,” Hyunjin replies, gently holding the older’s hand in his. “Forever.”

**Author's Note:**

> this fic was inspired mainly by day6's "if: mata aetara", but the lyrics in the fic are from moondust by jaymes young (also the namesake of the title), easy by troye sivan, and saturn by sleeping at last in that order!


End file.
